1/3 of my screen is unresponsive primarily on the left side, but only on desktop??

Question

1/3 of my screen is unresponsive primarily on the left side, but only on desktop??

Anonymous

I tried to insert some pictures to help explain but it keeps giving me an error.

Basically, I have desktop icons spanning 4 columns from the top to the bottom on the left side of the screen. I can't select them at all, not even the slight outline comes up when I hover over them. I can't even bring up the blue select box. This seems to be happening about a third of the way into the screen from the left side. The entire right side, as well as the taskbar work just fine. This only happens on desktop. In an app, in a browser, etc. I can click anywhere. I'm at a loss for why 1/3 of my screen is completely unresponsive but only on the desktop. This is really annoying because I have to open chrome (and any other app on that side) through the search bar. Does anyone have any ideas on how to figure out what's going on? Thanks.

As well, Restarting does nothing, and this has been happening for about a week.

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

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Answer 1

Hello JuneEN,

Thank you for using Microsoft products and posting to the community.

I understand how annoying and frustrating this current issue is and I would be more than happy to help you.

Currently, for your question about not being able to insert images, does it mean that you get an error when you try to upload images to this forum? Or do you mean some other situation? If it's convenient, could you share the error message with me?

For the problem you are having, perhaps you could first try creating a new account and see if the problem still exists in the new account configuration. It is possible that there is a problem with the current account configuration that is causing this issue. For information on how to create a new account you can refer to the following link.

Create a local user or administrator account in Windows - Microsoft Support

In order to troubleshoot possible impacts under the current account, you can perform a clean boot. A "clean boot" starts Windows with a minimal set of drivers and startup programs, so that you can determine whether a background program is interfering with your game or program.

How to perform a clean boot in Windows - Microsoft Support

Disclaimer: A “clean boot” starts Windows with a minimal set of drivers and startup programs. It helps to determine whether a background service is interfering with your game or program and to isolate the cause of a problem. These steps of "clean boot" might look complicated at first glance. However, to avoid any trouble for you, please follow them in order and step-by step so that it will help you get back on track.

In addition, you could record a video of your question and share it with me via private message, which will help me understand your current situation more clearly.

During my search, I noticed that some users have given feedback about similar issues that may be affected by the Windows widget. Currently you can also try the following steps to see if it works.

Open Task Manager (search directly in the search box), find the widgets process and end the task.
In the blank space of Windows 11 desktop, right click mouse and select Personalization, after entering the personalization interface, click personalization-taskbar on the left side in turn, in the taskbar page, turn off the show widgets button switch.

Please feel free to let me know if you have any further updates, thanks.

Sincerely

Mavis - MSFT | Microsoft Community Support Specialist

Answer 2

I've seen a few people raise issues regarding Windows 11 and the left hand side of the desktop going unresponsive occasionally. No left or right click for icons, but move towards the middle and the right all is well.

This is a known issue actually caused by the Windows 11 Widgets feature. That dead area is behind it's pop up window.

Disabling the feature by a Right-click on any empty space on the Taskbar > Open Taskbar Settings > Slide Widgets to Off does just that, turns it off but it is still running as a Windows process using up resources.

I've actually now uninstalled it and the bonus is the OS just feels more snappy. It removes the (IMHO) useless Widgets but also removes the annoying suggestions and web ads from appearing into your central Search box result window.

Open Powershell as an admin, run the following then reboot.

Get-AppxPackage | Where-Object {$_.Name -like "*WebExperience*"} | Remove-AppxPackage

Answer 3

Hello,

Firstly, thank you very much for your time and assistance. I was just getting a "failed to upload" error when I attempted to insert a picture into the body of my question.

I have to say I'm not sure what exactly fixed the issue, because when I turned on my computer today it still wouldn't work. But when I followed your first idea of testing if it's an account configuration issue I discovered that not only was the screen completely fine on the new account, but when I switched back I was able to use the desktop on my regular account as normal!

Thank you very much and have a good day, if this happens again in the future I will try your clean boot idea.

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1/3 of my screen is unresponsive primarily on the left side, but only on desktop??

2 additional answers